I Found a $20 Bill. How I Intend To Use It.

April 1, 2013

I’ve been running a bit more lately.

We have a 3-year old and a 10-month old, which means I rarely run in the mornings. No reason to get up BEFORE them, right? However, this past Saturday, I was awake at 6:15. For whatever reason, I just could not go back to sleep. So, I nudged my wife to let her know that I was off for a quick run.

About 17 minutes into my run, I stopped cold in my tracks as I saw something on the sidewalk. As it turns out, the “something” I saw was a nice, new, crisp $20 bill.

After picking it up, I snapped a picture of this $20 bill (see above) and, of course, posted it to Instagram … and then shared it on Facebook and Twitter. As you can see from the comments on Instagram and Twitter, several folks had some “fun” with the fact that I was now getting paid to run. A few people on Facebook suggested that I “pay it forward” by buying coffee for people in line behind me.

How I Intend To Use The $20 Bill

The reason it’s still in my pocket is mostly because I wasn’t sure what the best use of it would be. I passed a homeless person on the corner yesterday and nearly gave it to him. I thought about “paying it forward” by buying coffee for a bunch of strangers. For whatever reason, none of those options seemed … well … like the right thing to do.

Then it hit me.

On my run this afternoon, I was listening to Chris Brogan’s podcast again. When I got back home, I jumped on my laptop and read this tweet from Chris. (No, I don’t read every tweet Chris posts, but remember … he was top of mind after listening to his podcast on my run).

Bingo!

Honoring Students with Special Needs: A prom to love, honor and celebrate students with Special Needs and integrate them with their peers from over 65 San Diego high schools.

There is a special place in my heart for our young people – ALL young people … no matter race, ethnicity, social-economic status or sexual orientation. It doesn’t matter if someone has special needs or is differently-abled. As cheesy as it sounds, children ARE our future.

Check out the video below and let me know if you have the same reaction that I just did.

One last thing: I realize there are a lot of places to donate. I realize that many of you reading this now regularly give back to the community. If this is not the cause you want to support – for whatever reason – I’m okay with that … as long as you take the time and/or money to help others.

Sometimes, I experience the same thing, but mostly, the money I've found ended up in a coffee shop. I guess it does not matter where the money to be spent as long as it does not spent on some things evil?